


Leave

by elesssar



Series: Stay [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 17:32:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2660495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elesssar/pseuds/elesssar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel oneshot to 'Stay'.</p><p>Kili is returning to Erebor, and he needs to say goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave

They’re leaving, and so far there is no sign of Tauriel. Kili looks around a few times, trying to be subtle, but he sees no flash of auburn. Fili, who misses nothing, notices and elbows him in the ribs with a laugh.

“I look like a right idiot, don’t I?” Kili asks his brother, who shrugs lightly.

“Ah, no one here is inclined to care,” he says.

Fili’s words are comforting to a degree, but then Kili remembers that they are about to leave for Erebor, and whilst his stomach clenches with excitement at the thought, there’s also a small mix of nerves, too. He’s worried that he may give away something of his feelings, for which Thorin would have his head.

Bard’s youngest daughter is giving them one last hug goodbye when Kili finally sees Tauriel appear over the brow of a small hill. She’s still wearing the wreath he placed in her hair days ago. She looks relieved to see them still there, and steps lithely down to meet them.

Almost without thinking he reaches for her, but stops himself. He doesn’t know if she notices.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier, I was... well, I was just looking for something,” she bows her head a little so that part of her hair swings in front of her face.

“It’s alright,” Kili says, and he’s happy but this is bittersweet, “I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”

Tauriel looks up at him, and breathes a tiny sigh.

Confidently, Kili starts to walk away from his companions, looking over his shoulder and nodding to Tauriel to indicate for her to follow them. Now of course it definitely will get back to Thorin, but Kili has decided that he doesn’t particularly care. When they’re under cover of a copse of trees a few metres away he turns to her.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he admits, referring to everything all at once. He’s unsure, and he suddenly notices his hands are shaking. He’s hyper aware of the buzz of the displaced people off in the distance, the still-lingering smell of the smoke from the mouldering ruin of Lake-Town, the stiffness in the muscles of his mostly healed leg. Of the way that her hair frames her face and her beloved starlight seems to glitter in her eyes.

“I understand,” she says, and looks down, “I don’t know what’s going to happen either. I can predict some things, however. Most of what seems destined to happen...most of it feels to be only tragedy.”

“War? Death? Heartbreak?” Kili asks, and if he sounds bitter then so be it.

Tauriel smiles sadly, and it is the smile of someone doomed to see long ages of the world.

“All three. Some sooner rather than later, but all shall take their toll.”

“Well, _I’m_ not going to give up, Tauriel! I refuse to lose hope,” Kili says suddenly, viciously, reaching forward to clasp Tauriel’s delicate hands in own, “Smaug is dead and my uncle holds Erebor now, the true King Under the Mountain! It seems too good to be true and maybe it is, but there’s every possibility that Fili and I will arrive and all will be well, Thorin will have sent for our kin in the Blue Mountains, and that sometime soon Dale will be rebuilt and the relations between Mirkwood and Erebor will be repaired...”

“I hope that, too, Kili,” Tauriel says, but then she sighs again, “I do not, however, think that I shall be welcome in Mirkwood again for what I have done. I disobeyed the orders of my King. I am as good as an exile now – but no matter,” she says hastily, because Kili is about to protest. Quickly, she extricated one of her hands and reaches into a pocket in her tunic, pulling out something small. Suddenly embarrassed, she grips it tightly.

“I... I was late to see you off because I went to retrieve something. When I say retrieve something, I mean that I went wading in the lake and...” slowly, she uncurls her hand to show Kili the stone that lies in her palm. It’s uneven but relatively circular in shape, a pale blue colour and worn smooth.

“I know how much you treasure the talisman that your mother gave you,” she begins to explain hastily, “and although we do not do such things in my culture I felt that maybe... there are no runes on it because I don’t speak your language and you don’t speak mine, but I blessed it, which maybe will be good enough. I don’t know.”

Kili is speechless. Slowly, he touches the stone, and he feels it singing.

“This,” he says slowly, because his heart and mind are both racing and he doesn’t know what he’s saying but he knows that he’s happy, so happy, “means more to me than almost anything.”

Gently, he removes it from her hand and rolls it between his palms.

“The stone is speaking, in the way that stones can,” he says, looking up into her eyes, “the earth rejoices under the feet of the elves, and this stone is positively glowing from having been blessed.”

“I...am glad,” Tauriel says slowly.

Kili carefully tucks the stone away, and then takes her hands again in a more intimate gesture.

“Tauriel,” he begins, “I –”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Tauriel interrupts suddenly; “I know that you have to. I understand duty and honour – they are all that I have ever known. But...and yet...despite what I know, I don’t _want_ you to leave...me.”

Kili doesn’t really know how to respond to that, and he thinks that if he did try to speak he’d rather ruin the moment (he has a tendency of doing that), so instead he jumps up onto a nearby tree stump, recently felled, and pulls Tauriel towards him. She watches him, wide-eyes and close up as he brushes a strand of hair off of her face, and then kisses her.

Kili has kissed plenty of people in his life, but none like this. Not in this desperate way of two people clinging to one another, drawing out the moment in which they are one in any way possible because once they break apart the world will be changed in irreparable ways. Her hands rest on his waist, the pads of her fingers pressing hard into him, and his hands move from her shoulders to her neck to cup her cheeks. Their eyes are closed, and behind his eyelids Kili is seeing stars.

When at last they break apart, she rests her forehead against his with a small exhalation. Kili opens his eyes a crack, and sees Fili over Tauriel’s shoulder leaning against a tree with arms folded and a smirk on his face.

“Fili!” Kili yells, and then swears at him to go away. Fili just laughs.

“Don’t worry, Kili, I’m not infringing. I just came over because I actually have something I’d like to say to Tauriel.”

He approaches them, and Tauriel turns politely to face him.

To Kili’s surprise, Fili reaches across to her and grasps her forearms the way that friends do. He can’t see her face, but Kili feels like Tauriel and his brother are having some sort of conversation just with their eyes. He wonders suddenly if they got to know one another whilst he was unconscious with a bowl of walnuts on Bard’s kitchen table.

“Thank you,” Fili says honestly, “for taking care of my brother,” Fili’s eyes do not waver from Tauriel’s, “Thank you for saving his life – you did what I couldn’t... and I also thank you for everything else you have done. Hunting those orcs, helping all these people. I know that...well. Thorin hates elves, and I think he always will. But he...he won’t always be King. When I am King Under the Mountain, I think I shall attempt to rekindle the ancient friendship of the elves and the dwarves. It may take a long time, but I’m going to try.” His smile is one of promise and of hope, a smile conveying a feeling that Kili knows all too well – a feeling that he clings to.

“ _I_ thank _you_ , Fili,” Tauriel says, and this time attempts to bow to him as one would to royalty, but Fili pulls her upright laughingly.

“You have no need to bow to me,” he says, and the look that he finally exchanges with Kili speaks volumes. This is their legacy, it says, and Fili gives it his blessing.

Neither Kili nor Tauriel speak, but they both watch Fili make his way out of the copse, and suddenly time is running thin.

Tauriel turns back to Kili with a desperate and sad look in her eyes, and so he reaches out his arms and pulls her to him.

“We’d make a funny image,” he says, “the dwarf on the tree stump and the elf with hair like a fire moon.”

Tauriel doesn’t reply with words, but instead kisses him again. This time it is brief, but it is accompanied by a pang of bitterness stronger than any Kili has ever felt.

“You know,” he says to her as they stand so close that he can feel Tauriel’s eyelashes on his cheek, “I think that I can die happy now. And I might just.”

“Do not,” Tauriel says fiercely, pulling away slightly to look Kili in the eyes, “I beg you Kili, you must live. Remember your promise to your mother. Remember...remember when I asked you to stay?” Kili nods slightly, and Tauriel continues, “I didn’t just mean for you to stay under the tree, I meant...”

“I know,” Kili says, “I know what you meant. You were asking me to stay in this world, to live.”

“Primarily for your brother,” she says, “and your mother, and your uncle and your kingdom. But, please...live for me. I am destined to live until this world passes away, but I should hate to live in that world without you any longer than I have to.”

As she admits this, a strange expression crosses her face, and Kili supposes it is the look of an elf who has suddenly realised their own immortality.

“I will,” he promises instantly, wrapping his arms around her shoulders again and holding her tight against him, “I promise, I will. You must promise me the same.”

“I do,” she says instantly, “I promise, I shall stay alive for you.”

They would stay like that forever, only Kili must go.

“Soon,” he promises her as he kisses her one last time, although in actuality he has no idea if he really shall see her again. He has hope, of course, but he wonders now if that’s enough.

She agrees with a nod, and surrounded by the soft whispering of the wind rustling through the branches of the trees, she watches Kili leave.


End file.
